Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN)

Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN) works on natural resource management and livelihoods in India's rainfed and drought prone areas, with a focus on the poorest farming communities. Its stated vision is to entrench participatory processes through a network approach that strengthens natural resource management practices and secures livelihoods in drought prone areas.

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It describes its purpose as articulating the voices and needs of people and agro-ecologies at the margins into public systems and policies, so that action can be catalysed at scale. Its mandate is to strengthen civil society space, build the capacity of organisations working with communities and government, and evolve a policy narrative from evidence and grassroots innovation. In practice this means working simultaneously at village level and at the level of state programme design, often as the technical agency inside a government scheme. Its intensive work runs across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand, and through its network it engages in seven states.

Headquarters: Hyderabad, Telangana

Major Areas of Work

• Watershed development and water resources: Revitalising rainfed landscapes by treating soil, water, forest and livestock as one integrated production system.

• Agroecology and natural farming: Building resilience and system productivity in fragile, climate stressed rainfed geographies, alongside local economic capacity.

• Biodiversity and seed systems: Supporting the conservation and use of agricultural and livestock biodiversity, and the community seed systems that hold it.

• Nutrition sensitive livelihoods: Millets, backyard poultry, fisheries in seasonal water bodies, livestock and WASH work aimed at both income and nutritional security.

• Public systems and policy development: Turning field evidence and scientific analysis into government programme design so that approaches can be scaled through public investment.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRA Network): A national network for rainfed agriculture, whose Network Hub WASSAN anchors.

• National Coalition on Natural Farming (NCNF): A coalition of civil society organisations and researchers working to mainstream natural farming, whose Secretariat WASSAN anchors.

• Odisha Millets Mission (OMM): A flagship programme of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment, Government of Odisha, launched in 2017 to revive millets in farms and on plates.

• Enabling Natural Farming Transition in Tribal Landscapes of Odisha: A Government of Odisha programme across 5 districts and 45 blocks, for which WASSAN is the Programme Management Unit.

• Jiwi Daah Hasa, a high impact mega watershed project in Jharkhand: Building Gram Panchayat capacity to plan and implement MGNREGA for ecosystem revival on watershed principles, with WASSAN as Lead Technical Agency.

• Inclusion of Millets into ICDS: Piloted in three aspirational districts of Telangana with the Women and Child Development Department and NITI Aayog, building on earlier work in Adilabad and Vikarabad.

WASSAN also acts as Lead Technical Agency for backyard poultry with indigenous breeds in tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh under the Animal Husbandry Department, and partners the Government of Odisha on the Special Programme for Promotion of Integrated Farming in Tribal Areas in Malkangiri, Koraput, Rayagada, Nuapada and Gajapati.

Impact

WASSAN states it works collaboratively with 6 international and 50 local organisations towards nutritional security, women's empowerment and climate resilience; that its backyard poultry programme generates an income of one lakh rupees per household for 1,000 families in villages of Andhra Pradesh; and that a WASH project reached 722 families across 11 villages of Anandapuram mandal in Visakhapatnam district. It maintains partnerships with the Governments of Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, NITI Aayog, NABARD, FAO India, GIZ, Welthungerhilfe, World Resources Institute, Ford Foundation, Swissaid, Bread for the World, Rainforest Alliance, Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, Rainmatter Foundation, ATE Chandra Foundation, ICAR-NBPGR, the University of Greenwich, Global Greengrants Fund and BRLF.

Working at WASSAN suits people who want field level agriculture and natural resource work that connects directly to state policy. Much of its work is delivered as the technical or programme management unit inside government missions, so staff get unusual exposure to how a scheme is designed, scaled and run across districts, as well as to the tribal and rainfed geographies where the work happens. It fits agronomists, watershed and water engineers, livestock and fisheries specialists, nutrition and WASH practitioners, and programme managers who are comfortable moving between a village in Malkangiri and a policy discussion in a state capital.